Dumb Pitching Question

[1993DawgAlum]

Our starting pitching has kept us in games for the most part but all bets are off when we go to the bullpen. That’s who we are and everyone knows it. Starting Brandon, Beef, and Cade each day of the series has given us a fighting chance early, then we always fall apart late. Why not throw our best guys in game 1 & 2 to try and take at least 1 from TN? So what if we burn all the starters and get obliterated in game 3? We are on an 0-9 streak and just got swept….again. I say we blow our wad on game 1 & 2 next weekend. Otherwise, it feels like we end this season going 1-12.

 

[Smoked Toag]

Our starting pitching has kept us in games for the most part but all bets are off when we go to the bullpen. That’s who we are and everyone knows it. Starting Brandon, Beef, and Cade each day of the series has given us a fighting chance early, then we always fall apart late. Why not throw our best guys in game 1 & 2 to try and take at least 1 from TN? So what if we burn all the starters and get obliterated in game 3? We are on an 0-9 streak and just got swept….again. I say we blow our wad on game 1 & 2 next weekend. Otherwise, it feels like we end this season going 1-12.

Gutless baseball. All games count the same. Mailing any of them in will kill you as a head coach. Players will lose respect.

 

[NWADawg]

Gutless baseball. All games count the same. Mailing any of them in will kill you as a head coach. Players will lose respect.

I don't see it as mailing one in. I see it as - what we're currently doing isn't working. So, we're gonna do whatever it takes and use whoever it takes to win game 1. Then, with who is left, we are gonna do whatever and use whoever to try to win game 2, ....try to win game 3.

 

[Smoked Toag]

I don't see it as mailing one in. I see it as - what we're currently doing isn't working. So, we're gonna do whatever it takes and use whoever it takes to win game 1. Then, with who is left, we are gonna do whatever and use whoever to try to win game 2, ....try to win game 3.

That's not what he said. He said "Why not throw our best guys in game 1 & 2 to try and take at least 1 from TN? So what if we burn all the starters and get obliterated in game 3?" The objective is to win 3 games, always, in college baseball weekend series.

I don't necessarily disagree with your approach.

 

[ronpolk]

Are you suggesting throwing all 3 on Friday or all 3 on games 1 and 2? If it’s throwing all 3 over 2 games, I fail to see how that improves our chances for any game. If it’s all 3 on Friday, maybe we have a better chance at 1 game. But it’s also kinda signaling you don’t give a **** about the other 2 games. How do you convince your players to give a **** if by designing the lineup the coach is saying he does not give a ****? The players on the team deserve the best shot to win each game, not just 1. Plus how you gonna convince a pitcher or a couple pitchers that “well Sunday is on you, regardless of how bad you’re throwing”… just gonna throw them the wolves. I wouldn’t want to play for a coach that did that.

 

[kired]

I'd like to see us do whatever it takes to win at least 1 game this weekend. If that's a combo of Johnson and one of the Smiths in game 1 - so be it. At this point you've got to do something different. We started Hootie last year in the postseason after not starting during SEC play. Fristoe and MacLeod weren't going to get it done, so we changed things up.

Our bullpen can't be trusted to protect any lead. So you've got to switch things up. We've got limited arms so at some point we've got to pitch guys with sky high ERAs. I wouldn't be opposed to starting someone like Fristoe or Kohn in game 2, let them go until they get in trouble and bring one of the Smiths.

What we do know is we're not going to get 3 - 4 innings from our bullpen to close a game out. Hasn't happened this year, isn't going to happen this weekend.

 

[1993DawgAlum]

I wasn’t suggesting that we throw game 3. Far from it. When Lemon's goes to the bullpen in the 5th or 6th, it has resulted in big innings late for the other dugout. If we start with that premise, and the likelihood we give up big hits late and lose 3 games to TN, I’m suggesting mix it up and throw our best guys first. When we get to day 3, we throw the next best available guy. We aren’t going to Hoover. Saturday is the last game of the season. We have nothing to lose, right?

 

[1993DawgAlum]

I see what ur saying, but you can’t win 3 if you can’t win 1. Could we take 3 games from TN with our regular pitching rotation? Not likely. So, instead we start Brandon Smith and bring in Cade or Preston as relievers on Thursday.

 

[Ralph Cramden]

It's pointless either way